Martin Gold

Martin E. Gold is an Adjunct Professor of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, teaching courses at Columbia GSAPP on real estate development law and commercial leasing since 1988. He has also served as Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School, teaching a popular course on Real Estate Development Law. He received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University (he was both graduating class president and class marshal). He thereafter obtained a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School and an advanced degree from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

He was awarded grants for 1971 and 1972 from the Center for Law and Development, a subdivision of the Ford Foundation, to study law and social change in Sri Lanka. The study was turned into a book entitled Law and Social Change, A Study of Land Reform in Sri Lanka 1977 with a foreword by Nobel Prize winner Gunnar Myrdal. He began the practice of law in 1973 as an associate with the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton.

In 1978 he left there to begin and to head a department of lawyers in the New York City Law Department, during the administration of Edward I. Koch, called the Economic Development Division. The Division implemented dozens of projects including South Street Seaport, Theater Row, the Marriott Marquis, the Teleport telecommunications and a methane recovery facility (the first of its type) on Staten Island’s giant landfill. His final project with the City was the 42nd Street-Times Square Development Project. During this period he also crafted the City’s form of ground lease which was subsequently adopted by other municipalities, and he was named the Director of Corporate Law for the City making him the City’s chief corporate, finance, and transaction attorney.

While in City government, Mr. Gold was the recipient of grant awards from the Rockefeller Bros. Foundation and The Fund for the City of New York. Separate from his practice he has authored five bills that were passed by the New York State legislature. For each he was awarded a pen used by the governor to sign the bill into law. One of the laws (1989) was for the legalization of compound interest in New York. The complexity of compound interest had an opposition that prevented its legalization for 175 years. Two other bills created or augmented laws that provide incentives for development projects.

In 1985 he joined the law firm of Brown & Wood as its first real estate partner. Brown & Wood merged with Sidley Austin in 2001 creating a global firm with over 2000 lawyers. His practice focused on all types of real estate (especially complex development) and infrastructure. His clients have included the U.S. government, foreign governments, developers, large corporations, not-for-profits, financial institutions and various colleges, including Columbia University. Examples of his Columbia projects include the five-building Audubon Biomedical Research Park, the Mailer School of Public Health, and Shapiro Hall. He led a 30-lawyer team on the development of Delta’s Terminal IV at JFK Airport. He also co-founded the firm’s political asylum program before retiring in 2018. Following retirement he taught law in Sydney Australia at the University of New South Wales.

Mr. Gold is the author of approximately twenty articles, most of them in law or economic journals (including law reviews at Columbia, Harvard, Fordham, Virginia and Stanford), and the book on Sri Lanka mentioned earlier. He has lectured at numerous universities as well as before the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Conference of State Legislatures and at programs of the U.S. Justice Department. He has been listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, Who’s Who in America, and Who’s Who in the World and periodically in The Legal 500. He is an elected Fellow of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers (ACREL), the national academy and highest achievement for real estate attorneys. In 2017, the Marquis Who’s Who Board included him in the first cohort ever honored for “Lifetime Achievement”.

Photography and travel are two of his favorite pass-times. Despite having dealt with five cancers and four stents, he has travelled to all 50 states and to 114 countries.